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Journal on marketing analyst at food seasoning company in Nigeria

Spices are commodity crops of high value that occur on the Nigerian flora. Spices have a lot of importance but in Nigeria, it has been neglected as these spices are cultivated just like other food crops. In this journal, an evaluation of spices' economic potential and how best the constraints affecting the food seasoning industry can be dealt with. A marketing analyst helps in this study because he directly talks with both the company and the customers. These studies were conducted by the marketing analyst on three states in Nigeria covering the northern, southern, and eastern parts of Nigeria. Close to 100 marketers were interviewed with a well-structured questionnaire. Gross margin analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data. The analysis showed that 60 percent of the marketers were females and 65 percent of these females were in the age bracket of 31-40 years. Further analysis that marketing spices in the Nigerian agro-ecological zones were profitable. Ginger and mandora were some of the sampled spices and their marketing efficiency was in ascending order. The major constraint to the marketing of spices in Nigeria was the high cost of transportation. For these reasons, marketing analysts propose an increased production and marketing of the economic awareness and heralding of the nutritional value of this species.

Key Words: spices marketing, marketing constraints, market margin, agro-ecological, garlic.

Introduction

According to Manandhar, 1995, Condiments, spices are plant products that help for seasoning, enhancing, and flavoring drugs, beverages, and foods. Spices can be used as preservatives, perfumes, medicines, and dyes for coloring and even in sacred rituals. Since the year 1998, the total volume of spices has been increasing. Going forward, the metric tones for the spices have been rising every year. In the year 2000 for example, India produced 2.4 tons compared to 2.1 and 2.2 tons that were produced in 1998 and 1999 respectively. In Nigeria, spices production was at 378, 000 tons on average in 2008 and 147,000 tonnes in 2000. This is according to the FAO statistics of 2008. Most of the plants that are used in the production of spices are wildly collected. This puts these plants at a higher risk of being extinct as they are not grown like any other plants in Nigeria. Most of the spices like Monodora Myristica and piper guineense are mostly produced in the forest zone of southern Nigeria where the plants are reserved for purposes of spice production.

The world's largest traded spice, black pepper has restricted backyard gardens having only scanty plantations. As a market analyst, this plant needs to be planted in plenty to meet the market needs. Garlic and ginger are spicing that act as food buffers which largely creates a lot of income for farmers growing it as the spices are famous on the market. The major challenge facing the spice industry is that there is no appropriate technology pursued to sustain the production of spices and the marketing system also is not yet developed to determine and predict spice production on the world market.

According to Meller, 1992, the marketing system of the spice industry is greatly neglected. The marketing condition changed because of the spice industry being neglected. This is according to Make and Njogu, 1996. If greatly paid attention to, the spice industry has a great potential of positively impacting the economic status of the farmers. From research, marketing analysts argue that spices are high-value commodities that can impact the economic status of the farmers, however, no economic analysis in Nigeria has been documented in Nigeria to guide farmers on the same. In this journal, spice marketing in Nigeria was determined together with the attributes of the farmers. The profitability and possible constraints were also determining associated with the marketing spices in Nigeria.

Materials and Methods

Data collection was through a two-stage sampling technique. Nine markets were selected from the three zones of Nigeria. Kano, Imo, and Oyo were the three markets that were selected in the three ecological zones. 108 respondents were gathered from 12 spice marketers. However, only 106 questionnaires were analyzed. The factors that were gathered in these questionnaires included marketing factors, socioeconomic characteristics, and the challenges that were faced by the marketers. Marketing margin analysis and descriptive statistics were used in analyzing data. The formulas are according to Isitory and Olukosi, 1990.

MM=TR-TMC…...............................… (i)

ME=TR/TMC…………....................... (ii)

TR = is total revenue, TMC is total marketing cost, MM is marketing margin and ME is the marketing efficiency.

Results and Discussion

The marketing of spices is dominated by females. In all the Oyo and Imo states, female marketers dominated. In Kano state, 100 % of males dominated. This however can be attributed to religious matters. Most of the respondents were also still young and energetic in the age bracket of 31-50 years. More married people are engaged in the marketing of spices as they have many commitments at home compared to singles. Most of the marketers again had secondary school education depicting a level of literacy in the industry.

Analysis of spices marketing in Nigeria

Marketing Margin and Efficiency Analysis

In the study area, 5784 was the average net margin. Garlic had the highest marketing efficiency in the Imo state and lowest in the Oyo state. Nonetheless, the normal advertising edge and normal showcasing productivity of the three states were N 5123 and 1.47, individually. Garlic had the most noteworthy normal advertising productivity (1.67) which infers that for each N 1 spent in buying garlic in the three states tested, the advertiser will accumulate 67k as gets back to his/her venture. Moreover, the huge distinction between the most minimal market edge (N 645) and the most noteworthy market edge (N 3496) among the three states may be expected to the distinctions in the financial conditions between the business sectors. Be that as it may, the high advertising productivity could be deciphered to mean an effective advertising framework; as per Olukosi and Isitor (1990), market effectiveness is an element of both evaluating and operational proficiency. This outcome could, hence, be deciphered as importance high estimating effectiveness in flavors showcasing in the study region.

Conclusion

In this study, more females than males are involved in the marketing of food seasoning in Nigeria. More marketers also had literacy levels of secondary school education and above. Marketing was both profitable to the farmers and consumers of the seasoned food. Social amenities like roads however have to be alleviated to help marketers have an easy time reaching the clients and to the factory. Finally, awareness needs to be done concerning the nutritional values of the seasoned food.

References

Manandhar, N. P. (1995). Substitute spice in Nepal. J. Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants 3: 71-77.

Njoku J. E. and Nweke, F. I. (1996). Plantain Marketing in South-Eastern Nigeria. Paper Presented at Third Conference of IARPB, Abidjan Cote d’ivore

Olukosi, J. O. and Isitor, S. V. (1990). Introduction to Agricultural Market and Price: Principles and Applications. Agitab Publishers, Zaria.